What should the conditions be in the place of detention?
To evaluate if you are being held according to human rights standards, you should pay attention to such basic conditions as:
- Are men and women being held separately?
- Is the size of the cell big enough for the number of people in it?
- Is your cell clean?
- Do you have a bed, mattress, blanket and bed linen?
- Do you have a toilet and sink in your cell, which is properly separated from the rest of the cell?
- Is it too cold or too hot in your cell?
- Do you have daylight during the day and a light after dark?
- Are you able to go outside for a walk at least once a day?
- Have you been fed three times a day and given unlimited access to drinking water?
- Have you been able to take a shower regularly and received the necessary hygienic products?
Men, women and persons younger than 18 shall be placed separately. This may be except third-country nationals in kinship relation. Families shall be placed together in the facility. If the facility decides to separate a family, it shall always make sure that the consequences of this separation are adequate to the reasons.
In Slovakia, the details and standards of these conditions are explained in the Act on Residence of Foreigners and the Act on Police Force.
What human rights violation may there be?
Being held in inappropriate conditions may be very humiliating and cause physical and psychological suffering. For example, if you are denied food or water, or you do not have a bed or if your room is very dirty. If you suffer these conditions for a longer period or several of them at the same time, it may result in human rights violations. This is called inhumane or degrading treatment.
However, the suffering due to the conditions has to reach at least a minimum level of severity to result in a human rights violation. When assessing whether you have been held in conditions that are inhumane or degrading, such things as the duration of the situation, the physical and psychological effects, your age, gender and the condition of your health would be taken into account. Often, the conditions at the detention place will all be evaluated together and not on the basis of a single, isolated incident.
Read more about how to evaluate whether your rights have been violated.